Vague Spirits
by hyacinthian
Summary: He won't forgive her. Not tonight. MaryMarshall. Post Once A Ponzi Time.


Marshall won't forgive her. Not tonight.

He stares into his tumbler, as if it'll provide some answers, any answers. He's bitter, and they both know it.

She's always been a little too aware of how well they work together, quirks and all. She makes light of the things she doesn't want to see, like how he brings her coffee just the way she likes it or the way he looks at her.

Even that confused, blustery way she kissed him to protect her cover? His lips were insistent on hers – pressing, even in that brief moment of time, because _goddamn_, had he wanted it to be real.

Nothing was real with Mary. She deals in witness protection, in giving people fake names and fake lives masqueraded as "fresh starts." The alcohol burns its way down and for a minute, he doesn't think about the brain cells he's killing, his statistical risk of acquiring cirrhosis, or how grapes can ferment in the stomachs of elephants after consumption to make them drunk, ex post facto (_ipso facto_? he's a little too tipsy to be thinking of eloquent latin phrases). He's just grateful that such a god like Bacchus exists, or used to be believed in.

He remembers when she visited him in the hospital. Her only friend? Right. Except for Dershowitz and her fiancé and even Stan – she has all these men in her life and he feels like an idiot most of the time trying to make her see that he matters. He forgives her too much, he thinks, and doesn't crucify himself enough for feeling like a doormat to her impulses.

She told Raph about who she works for and he doesn't know why he considers that unforgivable, but he kind of does. This is Mary, for Christ's sake – she's practically a Rottweiler most of the time, barking angrily at people and attacking things. For her to give up the appearance of being strong? He can't believe that's her (it isn't her), and here she is, contradicting herself.

_I talk wildly, I have lost my wits, I and nobody else am the greatest traitor—_

His head is spinning.

He stands, shaky, just as he hears the soft clicking of her shoes against the floor and he has to stop and wonder if it's hallucination or real.

It's real, of course, because Mary hardly believes in hallucinations. (And to be represented by something she doesn't believe in?)

Standing there, hands on her hips, she looks at him, gives him a caustic mockery of a smile. "Hello, sunshine."

_Behold, I do not give lectures or a little charity,_

_When I give I give myself._

He doesn't say anything. He loves her and he can't bring himself to tell her anything but the fact that he can't stand her right now. He chooses not to say anything.

_Do I contradict myself?_

_Very well then I contradict myself._

"You're not driving home."

He can't help himself. His lips curl into that dry expression he has – "Wasn't planning on it."

"Not letting you fall unconscious in the desert either."

"It's sweet how much you care." The sarcasm trickles out the sides of his mouth.

"Come on," she says, snatching his keys off the edge of his desk. "I'm taking you home."

"I'm a marshal," he says. "I can take care of myself."

"How are you going to do that when you can't pass a Breathalyzer?"

"Not going home."

"What, are you going to stay here?"

He pours himself another tumbler and drinks it before she can protest or punch him, or both. She just watches as he drinks it down messily, lips slick with alcohol. "I'm fine here," he slurs.

"Marshall."

"Just stop it."

_Listener up there! what have you to confide to me?_

_Look in my face while I snuff the sidle of evening,_

_(Talk honestly, no one else hears you, and I stay only a minute longer.)_

"Stop being a dick then and just grab your shit and let's go."

Mary is kind of like a rougher Mae West, he thinks – a little less curvy, but a lot more hot lead and trigger happy, same amount of balls. "I'm not leaving with you."

"I'm not leaving you here."

It's a standoff – unfamiliar terrain to the both of them, for as much as he tries to keep her on her toes, he's never been one to really challenge her in her authority.

"What, you want me to arrest you?"

"Please."

She sniffs. "I don't think you'd be the type to hit a girl."

"You're not a girl." (She expects the second half of the quip to emerge: _you're a trigger-happy squirrel _or something like that, hell, she has no idea how to imitate him, just knows what to expect; it doesn't emerge, he doesn't speak)

"Enough of this shit."

She grabs him forcefully by the arm, twists it behind his back like she does to suspects, tries to lead him toward the door. But he's been through Marshal training too, exploits the weakness of surprise and physics to slam his body weight against her, throw her against the edge of the desk, before sliding his arms around her shoulders and abdomen, securing her roughly. "Mary, go home."

She elbows him roughly in the abdomen and he feels the air rush out of him. She huffs out a laugh. "You really want to fight me when you're drunk?"

He grabs the scotch bottle in submission. "Let's go."

She smirks.

The drive back to his place is silent – stifling silence that makes her feel uncomfortable and makes him feel indifferent. She idles the car as he takes the bottle and walks to the door. He opens it with a moderate amount of difficulty, closing the door behind him and taking a messy swig. He doesn't turn the lights on; he toes off his shoes and flops on the bed, open bottle in hand.

His foot nudges the TV remote – an X-Files marathon.

(_a redheaded gillian anderson – "mulder, come on," with that laughing tone – and then the familiar click of .22s, guns drawn – _

_"scully, i trust you." and damn it, he recognizes it; the dance? mulder and scully were bound to get together – he sees that, even when smashed out of his head. but he and mary aren't like them – they're not going to run around cornfields shouting each other's last names, ridiculously drawn out into a thousand syllables. _

_his last name isn't even polysyllabic, but that's a minor point.)_

He falls asleep just as Gillian Anderson is haphazardly tossing the prop intestines, gooey with fake blood, into a scale with disinterest.

Last conscious thought: he vaguely knows how they feel; the intestines, not Gillian Anderson.

-

The next morning, he has a hell of a hangover.

Mary calls twice. He doesn't answer.

(He calls in sick to work for the first time in years.)

-

_Will you speak before I am gone? will you prove already too late?_

-

_Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged,_

_Missing me one place search another,_

_I stop somewhere waiting for you._

-

She finds him. Always has, always will.

She slips a generic dollar store sympathy card underneath the front door. Scribbly cursive text with a generic picture of flowers –

"Thinking of you."

He snorts. Right.

Reaching down, he picks it up and opens it: "Open the door, jackass."

She knocks. Once. Twice.

(he counts down the time until she inevitably breaks down the door –

she doesn't.)

-

When he finally opens it, she sits. He makes coffee.

Sitting across from each other, she looks at him and cracks a small smile.

They drink coffee in comfortable silence.


End file.
